44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 17, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to Bill C-32, the fall economic statement implementation act.
At the outset, one of the things I find extremely confusing, and I heard the Bloc say it this morning, is that the government has not tried to help Canadians during such a difficult time to deal with inflation, the inflation we are seeing not just in Canada but indeed throughout the world.
I will speak to that, but before I do, I want to read a quote. It says, “government is ruining the Canadian dollar, so Canadians should have the freedom to use other money, such as Bitcoin.” Are there any guesses where that quote came from?
An hon. member: Is it Donald Trump?
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Mr. Speaker, no, it was not Donald Trump, but his protege in Canada. That would be the member for Carleton, the official Leader of the Opposition.
He actually said those words. He said Canadians do not have faith in the Canadian dollar, so they should be able to use other forms of money. From his position of leadership, he was encouraging people to not trust the Canadian dollar, but to instead trust cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin. I do not have to tell anyone what has happened to Bitcoin, not just over the last several months but indeed what we have seen in the last week.
Not only have we seen the collapse of cryptocurrencies, but now there is the new revelation of FTX and the games it was up to in order to create liquidity within its business, the experiences of bank runs that occurred as a result of that, and the collapse of their coin, seeing as much as $1 billion to $2 billion go missing. We are seeing what happens when there is no government control or government-backed currencies. That is exactly what we are seeing with the collapse of cryptocurrency and the revelations that are coming about as a result of the businesses that were heavily involved in cryptocurrency and investing in it.
This is where we are today. The member for Carleton has his famous video of when he bought that shawarma and paid for it with cryptocurrency. Let us assume he bought that Bitcoin in order to make that purchase. Who knows what he bought that Bitcoin for. Did he buy $10 worth of Bitcoin to make that purchase? What would that have cost him today? How much more Bitcoin would it have cost him to buy that shawarma today? It probably would have been about four or five times as much Bitcoin.
If we want to talk about inflation, the shawarma that he bought so famously and proudly using non-government-backed currency would cost him about four or five times as much today.
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Mr. Speaker, about 20 minutes ago, a Conservative colleague from across the way spent 10 minutes talking about one particular business in his riding and why that was not mentioned in a 10-minute fall economic statement for the entire country. However, somehow I cannot be critical of the Leader of the Opposition and his position when it comes to cryptocurrency. My humble advice—
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Mr. Speaker, my friend for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, who lives in the riding next to mine, should come visit me. I would be happy to take him out to lunch in Kingston any time. I will pay with Canadian cash, if he is okay with that.
However, what we are seeing is, unfortunately, that he and the Conservatives are up to their games again. Just the other night, he was up to the game of orchestrating quorum calls in the House. He was standing behind the door and would get all these Conservatives to leave the room, and then somebody would jump up and say, “Quorum, quorum.” This is what our official opposition is doing. These are childish games that I would not expect of my four-year-old in kindergarten.
They are elected as members of Parliament. The member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes thinks that this place is a big joke, that the work we do here is supposed to be a big joke and that they can play these games. Do not let Bloc colleagues turn their heads from this, because they were equally responsible for that the other night too and playing these games. It is unfortunate. We have to do work for Canadians, but the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes would rather play games than do that. I would encourage him to get back to the business of Canadians, and if he wants to discuss it over lunch in Kingston, I would be happy to do that with him.
When we talk about the supports for Canadians, I will draw a comparison, and this is my whole point. I will draw a comparison between what this government has been doing to support Canadians versus the hyped-up rhetoric, division and sowing the seeds to plant doubt in Canadians when it comes to the financial institutions we have. The member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, rather than working towards some of the measures contained in this bill, wants to get up in the House and tell Canadians to not believe in the Canadian dollar, effectively saying that it is worthless because it happens to be run by a bunch of people that he does not particularly like. Instead, he tells them they should go out and invest in bitcoin. What happened to bitcoin over the last six months? It absolutely plummeted, and anybody who took his advice would be in a pretty devastating position right now.
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Mr. Speaker, that is incredibly rich coming from this Bloc member who happens to be sitting next to the member who, only two nights ago, made the point that, yes, it is fun to watch members run out of the room and do a quorum call. However, this member wants me to trust that the Bloc is taking this place seriously when his own colleague, sitting right next to him, was engaging in those activities just two nights ago.
If Bloc members want me to talk about them because they are feeling a little left out as I have been focusing on the Conservatives, I am happy to do that too. However, for the Bloc member, his colleague sitting next to him asked moments ago why the government was not focused on supports for Canadians during these difficult times. Is he living under a rock? That is my question to him, because we can look at the countless initiatives and things that are in this fall economic statement that are there specifically—
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Mr. Speaker, three times the other night while I was speaking, the Conservatives did the exact same thing. I would take this opportunity to encourage people to go to my Twitter feed right now, where I posted a really interesting video that shows how Conservatives were playing with that quorum game just two nights ago in the House. They did it again. What happened when they did a quorum call? The Speaker stood up, verified we had quorum, and then I continued. This happens to me; it happened to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. The Conservatives are doing it routinely, and I do not understand if they think that is the business of the House, because it is not.
I would like to get back to the Bloc, and I apologize to my Conservative friends that I have gone off topic from them, and I want to focus on the Bloc. I am back with the Bloc now. Its members say we are not doing any initiatives for Canadians and that there is nothing to help Canadians. They can look at the countless measures in here making life more affordable, like by taking the interest off students loans. They can go talk to students who have interest on their loans and ask them if that is going to help make life more affordable for them. We are lowering credit card transactions and doubling the GST tax credit for six months for certain Canadians. There is a $500 top-up for the Canada housing benefit, the Canada dental benefit and a new quarterly Canada workers benefit.
Are Bloc members trying to tell me that those are not meaningful things that would impact people? Are they nodding? If they are nodding, that basically means they do not think that stuff would be impactful to Canadians and Quebeckers. Even if they are nodding, I doubt they would actually agree with that.
We can also look at some of the other stuff in here, like making housing more affordable. The housing top-up I mentioned is helping young Canadians afford a down payment faster. We are helping Canadians save on closing costs, introducing a new refundable multi-generational home renovation tax credit and cracking down on house flipping by ensuring profits from properties are held for less than 12 months. Do those members think these are initiatives that Canadians are not going to benefit from?
There is the Canada growth fund to help build technology, infrastructure and businesses. I could go on and on, and then the Bloc is going to get up, ask about the health transfers and say we are failing because they do not happen to agree with the manner in which we are distributing the health transfers.
This fall economic statement is about providing supports for Canadians. That is exactly what has been laid out in this document. It is exactly why I am very much in favour of supporting it, and I think the Canadian people will judge those who choose not to support these measures, and we will see how that comes to be when we get to vote for this. Hopefully Conservatives will let us vote on this some time in the fall, rather than waiting until June, like last year, but I will not hold my breath.
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Mr. Speaker, I have not asked a single question this morning. He might be referring to somebody else. I do not even know what he is talking about.
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Mr. Speaker, if I heard the member correctly, she said that The New York Times said that Quebec was the best at respecting the Constitution. I apologize if I am not willing to take advice from a foreign newspaper on Canada's Constitution and the way that various different parties contribute to it. I apologize, but I just cannot see how I can possibly answer a question that is based on the premise of a foreign newspaper weighing in on our Constitution.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
An hon. member: I cannot believe you just called The New York Times fake news.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. I think it is a valid question. I want to thank the member for bringing it up. I would agree that there will always be more we need to do.
I want to thank the NDP for actually being adults in the room when it comes to the other parties. It is the NDP who can take credit for what is in this bill, which they do when they see it as appropriate. They saw a situation where it is a minority Parliament. Rather than just be obstructionist like the two other opposition parties, they decided to try working with the government to actually advance things for Canadians. They did exactly that.
If the member would like to continue talking about housing, I would be more than willing to do that because I think it is an important issue. I hope he keeps raising it.
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Madam Speaker, I would agree with the member in his assessment of the unfortunate reality of corporations using the opportunity of inflation to further expedite the problem by adding more inflation and trying to profit off of it.
It is one thing to do this by putting a special tax on it, but how do we do that? He talked about profits of over a billion dollars. How does he see that being implemented practically and the results of that, and how that will be received?
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member is trying to do something indirectly that he cannot do directly. He is trying to talk about a former Trudeau government and suggest that it is equal to this one—
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Mr. Speaker, I will start by reading this quote: “[G]overnment is ruining the Canadian dollar, so Canadians should have the freedom to use other money, such as Bitcoin.” This is what was said by the Leader of the Opposition about six or seven months ago.
We know that since he made those comments, Bitcoin is now down by 65%, and the reality is that when we look at scandals like the FTX scandal, it is very obvious that the decentralization of currency is not a stable form and will never compare to something like the Canadian dollar.
I am wondering, since he made that comment, if the Leader of the Opposition has had the opportunity to reflect on his position, and if he has since then adjusted his position on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
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Madam Speaker, I must admit I am slightly taken aback by the member's intervention today, although I am not surprised, because I continually hear the same thing from Conservatives. Conservatives like to portray themselves as the saviours of the economy. As one of my colleagues said earlier, they like to think they are the be-all and end-all when it comes to economic and monetary policy.
We know that as the individual by whom this individual is led in the House and in the Conservative Party, the Leader of the Opposition's solution to investing and to the Canadian dollar was to get away from the Canadian dollar and move towards Bitcoin. I wonder if this member would—
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Madam Speaker, the first thing I need to do is apologize to the interpretation staff. I tried to put it on my seat, but accidentally set it right next to the microphone this time.
My question to the member is quite simple. What is his position on cryptocurrency? We know the position of the Leader of the Opposition. I know this member ran to be the leader of the opposition and must have engaged in dialogue on this during that campaign. Where does he stand on cryptocurrency as it relates to being an alternative to the Canadian dollar?
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